Projects

A small, lightweight, system for keeping tack of the books we (the Southern Maine
Men’s Book club) have read over the years. It’s a substibute for sites like
Google Groups and GoodReads
that we used for a while. Built using some very basic JavaScript with
jQuery and a few add-ons, like
data tables.

Packaging of Scorchworks F-Engrave as an macOS Application. F-Engrave generates ‘GCODE’ for Computer Numerical Control (CNC) systems from text and bitmaps. It “Suppoprts Engraving and V-Carving, Uses CXF and TTF fonts, Imports DXF and Bitmap images”. The official F-Engrave and instructions are at Scorchworks. This fork is merely to add packaging for macOS systems, creating a clickable ‘Applicaion’ that can be installed on any macOS system. This eliminates having to run F-Engrave from a Terminal prompt.

After a few months of code-doodling the Good Turn that I
developed way back in 2010 on iOS is now available on Android!
The app is a complete rewrite in Java using Google Firebase for
the data back-end. This version has actually been in development
since 2010 after the iOS version was released, I just never got
it to a state where I felt it was releasable until now.

An interactive audio controller app that mimics the 17-foot interactive
tower as part of Architalx’s 25th anniversary exhibit,
“Voices of Design: 25 Years of Architalx.” At the Portland Museum of
Art from February 2nd through May 19th, 2013. In collaboration
with Raphael DiLuzio and Matthias Oostrik. The
iPad app controls the audio portals and allows visitors to listen to
snippets of audio from past lectures on architecture by visiting
architects.

The United States is an educational application designed to help
K-5 students learn their United States geography. It was originally
envisioned by my son after many interruptions from my daughter asking
where a particular state was on the map. Developed by me over several
months and play tested by my daughter. Now that all our family members
are experts at identifying the states of the Union, it’s your turn.

The Good Turn application is a simple yet hi-tech
replacement for the age-old good turn coin carried by many scouts to
remind them to “Do a good turn daily.” It was primarily designed for the
iPhone and iPod touch. It works on the iPad in the double-size mode. The
fully functional application is free of charge. Additional in-app
purchases provide different stylized coins, bronze, silver, and gold,
for flipping each time a good turn is done. The cost of these goes
towards keeping the web companion site running, future development, and
most importantly supporting our local Boy Scouts and Cub
Scouts.

A Livescribe Pulse Smartpen
application that implements a simple countdown timer. The pen itself has
several applications for recording written notes and audio. Many users
had requested a countdown timer application even before Livescribe
released a development kit for the pen. This application was also
entered in the Livescribe Developer Challenge.

A native iPhone calculator application. The interface is based on the
distributed iPhone calculator application. The goal was to cplay around
with iPhone development It is really a base to flesh out the basic
functionality and a platform to build more on, if I have time.
Available on Google Code.

An experimental Adobe Flash game that helps a skateboarding Shawn Houser
avoid hitting his fast running sister Brianna. Keep your mouse inside
the game area and use the left and right keys to move Shawn and avoid
Brianna!

Network Operations Centers and Help Desks all over monitor their systems
and networks with an open source product called Big Brother
– the freely available version is now
Hobbit. Here’s how to add a traffic light to indicate network
status.

In my recent twiddlings with Microcontrollers a project has emerged.
picSimon! A reimplementation of the classic toy using a single
chip, a few discrete components, a few switches, and 4 LEDs. So far it
is quite a hit at home and the office. Shawn (my 6 year-old son) has
gotten up to about 6 moves, I have gotten 18 (once) and at the office
12-15 seems to be the range.

This project was a nice little Christmas present for my kids, and a
prototype for Me. Using MAME, the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator,
I built a “universal” arcade machine. The style of the case is a 3/4
scale version of Defender, one of my favorite arcade games.

Well after some playing around in my "side yard" my Big Ugly Dish (BUD) is up and receiving. This page is the story of how it all happened. Perhaps it will contain some helpful hints for other newcomers to the BUD world. Maybe not, but here it is anyway.